Sexual assault is any sexual contact ranging from touching to rape that involves the use or threat of force or violence or any form of coercion or intimidation; or any sexual contact with a person who is unable to consent. The trauma of sexual assault involves losing control of your own body and possibly fearing death or injury. “Rape Trauma Syndrome” is a term used to describe common reactions that occur after sexual assault. This syndrome is not an illness or abnormal reaction — it is a normal reaction to an abnormal, traumatic event.
For more information Visit the Sexual Assault Website.
Definitions:
| Rape: | the act of anal or vaginal sexual intercourse with a male or female person committed without the person’s lawful consent. Consent cannot be obtained by force such as physical force, threats, intimidation or coercion. |
| Aggravated Rape: | the act of rape where resistance is overcome by force, there are threats of bodily harm, the offender is armed with a weapon or two or more offenders participated in the act. |
| Forcible Rape: | the act of rape in which the victim is prevented from resisting by force or threats of physical violence where the victim believes resistance would not prevent rape. |
| Simple Rape: | the act of rape in which the victim is prevented from resisting or of understanding the nature of the act due to intoxication by alcohol, narcotic or any other substance or due to unsoundness of mind. |
| Sexual Battery: | the intentional touching, whether with offender’s body part or an instrument or object of some other type, of the person of another, no matter how slight, in or on an area of the body generally recognized as being a private part of the body; and/or the intentional touching of the offender’s private body part anywhere on the other person’s body. |
| Aggravated Sexual Battery: | the act of sexual battery where the offender intentionally inflicts serious bodily injury on the victim. |
